Optimizing your website for the search engines can result in more traffic, more subscribers and ultimately more money, it’s all about working smart and leveraging what you already have.

In the coming day’s I’m going to be releasing a series of post’s focusing on how you can get more out of your current website by implementing simple tweaks and changes.

Or how you can launch a new site that get’s results
sooner than later.

This site was launched in the summer of 2011 and in the last two years has continued to grow stronger and stronger in the search engines driving lots of free traffic, with that I made it a priority over the last few weeks to invest a bit of time to maximize that traffic.

The goal was to increase my mailing list by incorporating optin forms in several locations within my WordPress theme as well as within posts and pages that were ranking for various keyword phrases.

On June 8th of 2013 (about six weeks ago) I spent about three hours on my site layout and included some new elements to increase and further build my list, my effort was reward as today July 21, 2013 I have had 222 new subscribers who’ve opted in.

Today, in this post I will reveal the exact steps I took in order to nab those 222 subscribers and in the coming days I’ll also pull back the current further. Sharing the steps I took when launching this site, including which posts and pages drive the most optins, which pages and posts rank the best for various keyword phrases and lots more. I’ll also share how I optimize my posts and pages for multiple keywords, allowing me to drive more traffic.

My goal is to provide you with detailed explanations of why I’ve done the things I done and how effective those things have been in helping me to make more money online, thus, allowing you to duplicate my winning strategies and tactics.

Lastly, I’ll also share current plans that I will be implementing to take this site to the
next level in the coming weeks and months.

This blog post will guide you in optimizing your site:

For The Search EnginesAllowing you to drive more free search engine traffic for various keywords.

In Order to Build Your List FasterAllowing you to mail more folks & make more money!

A successful blog is built on great content that adds value, hopefully you’ll find this series of posts helpful and you will bookmark the site, share it on facebook, optin in to access more great free training and so on. You should ALWAYS begin with a great topic or idea to blog about first, many start with keywords and I personally believe this is a failed approach. When you chase keywords based on easy rankings or profit often times the content suffers due to lack of knowledge or interest.

I always …

1. Come up with a topic, idea or tactic to blog about.

2. Identify search terms that closely relate to that topic.

That is exactly how I began this blog post, I knew this post would focus on:

– Conversions
– Traffic
– Growing a mailing list

So I went over to the free Google keyword tool (soon to be keyword planner) and I researched a few keywords and came up with these search terms to target:

– optimizing a website

– optimizing a website for search engines

– optimizing website design

– optimizing website keywords

– optimizing website navigation

Once I had identified these keyword terms I then created my title and description for my soon to be post, I use the free WordPress plugin All In One SEO as seen in the screen capture below.

Notice that both my title tag and description contain singular words and phrases from my list of target search terms, in my next blog post I will target additional terms that I have not targeted in this post including:

– optimizing website navigation

– optimizing website design

This is how I have always created content for my various blogs online, come up with a content idea and then find the keywords that best relate to my upcoming blog post. Doing this allows me to create killer content that is also optimized for Google, allowing me to rank for relevant keywords.

Step Two: Call To Action & Ask The Visitor To Sign Up To My Mailing List

Visitors who find your site via search engines, social sites such as Facebook or Twitter or from a site referral are most likely never to return again, however this can easily be changed when you ask people to sign up for your mailing list in exchange for something such as a free report, case study, software app or simply to be notified when new content is added to your site.

This is called a call to action and every blog post you create should include some type of call to action, when you ask people to do something you will ALWAYS get better results. Thus, if you want folks to sign up for your list, you should ask them!

Or perhaps you want to grow your fanpage on Facebook, would be a great call to action and as more people “like” your page on FB you get the power! The power to connect with more people not only on your blog, but on facebook!

Speaking of Facebook, if you like this post (and were just getting warmed up) then please like this post by clicking on the button to the left!

Thanks!

That right there is a call to action and it will most certainly drive more traffic to this site and give me the power!

You can and should do the same exact thing with your site!

Building Your List with Your Website

In the example above I shared how you can boost your sites social signals (which in fact can help to improve search engine rankings) by getting more Facebook likes, now I want to show you how I spent a few hours improving my sites layout with the specific goal of getting more leads.

Most marketers like to include an optin forum at the top of the right sidebar, this is an excellent area to add an optin form however, most people will not optin using this area, why might you ask?

Well, it’s the expected place for an optin and most people who find your blogs post or page via Google are looking for specific information regarding the search string they used to find your site.

Here’s a great example, many people access this very site when searching Google for:

“Sell More Kindle Books”

I rank #6 for the term, not too bad.

Anyone accessing my site after using that search string is going to want information on “how to sell more Kindle books” and thus, their not going to be looking at the sidebar for an optin.

Rather, they expect to find some type of information on selling books immediately.

In order to capitalize on this very targeted traffic I planned on incorporating two elements to a number of post and pages that were focused on self publishing and selling more books via the Kindle store, those elements included.

1) A call to action in the forum of a video (video converts higher than text – period).

2) An optin form right below the video.

Here you can see how I have implemented this simple tactic for boosting your mailing list:

Funny thing, after implementing this strategy, weeks later I saw this blog post on Mashable on designing your blog for higher conversions, they mention doing the very thing I had done.

From Mashable:

1. Place your newsletter signup at the end of every article.

If you aren’t already collecting email addresses through your blog, you should be. Your newsletter is the most important thing to keep your most loyal visitors coming back to your site, again and again.

Most blog owners place a callout to their newsletter signup at the top of the sidebar, which is a good idea — that’s where most visitors will expect it to be. But there is one place even more important for your newsletter callout to make an appearance: at the very end of your blog posts.

This method works incredibly well, as soon as I made the changes, I enjoyed seeing a steady stream of daily optins, I also added a video optin right below my header. This optin also drives new subscribers and was part of my overall plan.

More Great Tactics Coming on Thursday July 25th
(How To Optimize Site Navigation & More)

This Thursday July 25th, I will be posting another article about how a simple five minute tweak to your sites navigation can have a big impact on your results, I will also be sharing with you the steps I took when launching this site to nearly guarantee more traffic soon after.

What Would You Like Me to To Cover On July 25th?

If you have a question about tweaking your current site, launching a site, SEO or what ever, please ask below.

Best,

Brian G. Johnson
People DO NOT fail at internet marketing,
they simply GIVE UP before the magic happens.

The first day I saw the new website I said to myself – WOW much better. I like the layout now. I especially like this post and love having the screen shots – not just narrative – of how to do and how to make better. I’m in the process of updating one site and creating a new one. I will refer to this guidance as I move forward. Thanks Brian!

Hi Brian,
Thanks for all the website optimization info – I have all the tools including the theme – so now its time to go to work. I especially like the picture of Oliver Twist (I know that shouldn’t be my focus but I still like it)!